Home>Publications>Econometrica>Using Full Duality to Show that Simultaneously Additive Direct and Indirect Utilities Implies Unitary Price Elasticity of Demand
The "indirect utility function," a concept associated with Hotelling, Roy, Houthakker, and others, gives the maximized value of consumer's ordinal utility in function of the prices and income of his budget constraint: namely, $\phi^{\ast} (p_{1} \I, \ldots, P_{n}\I) = \max \phi (x_{1}, \ldots, x_{n})$ with respect to $x$'s satisfying the budget constraint $\Sigma_{1}^{n} (p_{j} / I) x_{j} = 1$. Writing $p_{j} / I = y_{j}, \Phi (Y) = -\phi^{\ast} (Y)$ it follows that $N (X;Y) = \phi (X) + \Phi (Y) \lesseqqgtr 0$ along $\Sigma^{n}_{1} x_{j} y_{j} = 1$, equalling zero only along the equilibrium demand relations $X = X(Y), Y = Y(X) \equiv X^{-1}(X).$ It is shown that $\phi (X)$ and $\Phi (X)$ are completely dual functions, one possessing all the general properties of the other. Just as $/phi$'s partial derivatives give $\phi_{i} \phi_{j} = y_{i}/y_{j}$, $\varPhi$'s give $\varPhi_{i}/\varPhi_{j} = x_{i}/x_{j}$, etc. Numerous theorems are proved, such as: if either of $\phi$ and $\varPhi$ has homothetic contours, so does the other; if both can be stretched into an additive form, they are both homothetic and belong to the so-called constant-elasticity-of-substitution family of Solow et al., a result already anticipated by Bergson in 1936; if the above can hold with no stretching required, we are in the "pure Bernoulli-Marshall" or Cobb-Douglas case of unitary own-elasticity and other demonstrated equivalent properties. Finally, dual functions of mixed variables, $\phi (y_{1}, \ldots, y_{r}; x_{r+1}, \ldots, x_{n})$ and $\varPhi (x_{1}, \ldots, y_{r+1}, \ldots, y_{n}$, are defined by Legendre transformations and the properties of "demand under rationing" are deduced from them.
MLA
Samuelson, Paul A.. “Using Full Duality to Show that Simultaneously Additive Direct and Indirect Utilities Implies Unitary Price Elasticity of Demand.” Econometrica, vol. 33, .no 4, Econometric Society, 1965, pp. 781-796, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1910355
Chicago
Samuelson, Paul A.. “Using Full Duality to Show that Simultaneously Additive Direct and Indirect Utilities Implies Unitary Price Elasticity of Demand.” Econometrica, 33, .no 4, (Econometric Society: 1965), 781-796. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1910355
APA
Samuelson, P. A. (1965). Using Full Duality to Show that Simultaneously Additive Direct and Indirect Utilities Implies Unitary Price Elasticity of Demand. Econometrica, 33(4), 781-796. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1910355
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